Mariana Llanos and Eduardo Ryo Tamaki *

Crisis contexts are fertile ground for anti-systemic candidates. On August 13 in Argentina, on the occasion of the mandatory primaries (PASO), Javier Milei, populist candidate of the extreme right, was first with 30% of the votes, which left the opposition coalition Together for Changes in second place, and the Government in third. In the context of galloping inflation, exchange rate gap and increasing poverty, the 7 million who supported Milei expressed first of all their frustration and anger with the traditional political offer in the face of the economic situation that the current government, as well as their predecessor, has obviously occupied. they failed to solve. To counter what he defines as “Kirchnerian populism” or “left-handedness”, Milei proposes a liberal economic program in the antipode, based on a minimal state and zero deficit, arguing that it is the “political caste” that will pay the price of change, not people. His proposal is quite populist.

Miley’s riddle

In fact, Milei has so far proven to be a classic example of populism. Consider that populism has nothing to do with economic policy, although it is traditionally associated with fiscally irresponsible governments. For new approaches, populism is best defined as an ideology, however weak or incomplete, as a loosely articulated set of ideas about the world and politics that are expressed and maintained through discourses. It is a black and white world that combines the notion of morally good and homogenous “us” or “the people” against “them”, a malicious, corrupt and selfish “elite” who used the “people”, usurping their “power” for their own interests. The populist seeks to mobilize the population to oppose elites (economic, scientific, political or even transnational) while promising to return power to the people.

“Milei has a libertarian component that makes her a rare creature compared to the ultra-right of Latin America”

Miley is all that, she has 1,400,000 followers on TikTok, which she captivates with her “us” versus “them” story. fraudsters who robbed the system and are consequently responsible for 40 years of failure in Argentina. If he ends up with the government, he promises eradicate the privileges of politicians and put an end to the parasitic, corrupt and useless political caste. only thenThat the argentinian people can be free, only then can they be argentinians architects of their destiny.

Milei is not a new or isolated phenomenon. “Trump of the Pampas” would be equivalent to “trope trump“, as Bolsonaro was repeatedly called. And indeed these three leaders share many similarities: Milei is also waging a moral crusade against the progressive and liberal values ​​he believes seek to undermine and destroy the concept of family, and in this sense shares Bolsonaro’s anti-communist/socialist agenda. Showing his denial, Milei claims that climate change a socialist lie and believes that sex education is a a post-Marxist agenda that aims to exterminate the population. And even more. On the trail Trump and Bolsonaro, miley too promised to move the Argentine embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Within Latin America, Milei is another expression of the rightward turn that has spawned populists such as Rodolfo Hernández in Colombia, Keiko Fujimori in Peru, and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, among others.

Why should we care about President Milea?

A week after PASO, looting and vandalism were reported in different parts of the country, a familiar story in Argentina. If the economic situation does not improve and the social situation worsens, Milei Presidente is not an unlikely scenario. There we see another problem, which goes beyond ideology: also populist outsider or a rebel, who would come to bring “fresh air” into politics, has no political structure of his own, and is also hostile to cooperation, coalitions and concessions.

Who is Javier Milei and what are the radical proposals with which he won the primaries in Argentina

To illustrate, it may be worth comparing the case of Argentina’s recent past, that of Carlos Menem, president between 1989 and 1999, who came to power promising wages and a productive revolution, only to embrace neoliberalism after the election. Milei not only confirms that Menem’s first government was the best in history, but also that the former president once blessed him as his successor. In addition to similar inflation control programs (in the first, convertibility; for Milei, dollarization) and the reduction of the state, Menem stood out for implementing the largest privatization policy in the region. It is set as an option outsider come to power, while in reality he was the legitimate leader of the traditional and majority Justicialist Party, which not only won the presidency, but also a large majority in both legislative houses, which granted him two fundamental legislative delegation laws in 1989 and many others during throughout his first term.

Democracy does not rule only by public opinion. Institutional support is required for the adoption of important reforms such as privatization or the closure of the Central Bank. President Milei’s support will be weak in Congress and it will be inevitable that he settles with “caste”. Here we see two possibilities. The first, in the style of Bolsonaro, who came to the presidency with a significant parliamentary minority, but with grandiose promises to get rid of the “old politics” and not “politicize” with establishment corrupt and, once in power, devastated by his mishandling of the pandemic and hundreds of impeachment calls, he eventually agreed to center, that is, the distribution of ministries and funds to this group of opportunistic parties. Let’s remember that Bolsonaro left power at a high price for democracy, questioning electoral institutions and, like Trump, attacking the three powers on January 8 in Brasília.

Another alternative is known for Argentina. A radical or intransigent president will confront Congress and there will be a power struggle. Under conditions of crisis, the streets will be even more agitated and we will have another interrupted presidency. The prospects even for the elections on October 22 are uncertain. Between threats to democracy and economic risk, Miley’s populist bid brought a gloomy horizon for what should be a festive year, one in which Argentina celebrates forty years of democracy. (OR)

* Mariana Llanos is Principal Researcher, German Institute for Global and Spatial Studies (GIGA).

* Eduardo Ryo Tamaki is a researcher, German Institute for Global and Spatial Studies (GIGA) and member of the populism team.